almost any day, on plutoria avenue or thereabouts, you may see little mr. spillikins out walking with his four tall sons, who are practically as old as himself.

to be exact, mr. spillikins is twenty-four, and bob, the oldest of the boys, must be at least twenty. their exact ages are no longer known, because, by a dreadful accident, their mother forgot them. this was at a time when the boys were all at mr. wackem's academy for exceptional youths in the foothills of tennessee, and while their mother, mrs. everleigh, was spending the winter on the riviera and felt that for their own sake she must not allow herself to have the boys with her.

but now, of course, since mrs. everleigh has remarried and become mrs. everleigh-spillikins there is no need to keep them at mr. wackem's any longer. mr. spillikins is able to look after them.

mr. spillikins generally wears a little top hat and an english morning coat. the boys are in eton jackets and black trousers, which, at their mother's wish, are kept just a little too short for them. this is because mrs. everleigh-spillikins feels that the day will come some day—say fifteen years hence—when the boys will no longer be children, and meantime it is so nice to feel that they are still mere boys. bob is the eldest, but sib the youngest is the tallest, whereas willie the third boy is the dullest, although this has often been denied by those who claim that gib the second boy is just a trifle duller. thus at any rate there is a certain equality and good fellowship all round.

mrs. everleigh-spillikins is not to be seen walking with them. she is probably at the race-meet, being taken there by captain cormorant of the united states navy, which mr. spillikins considers very handsome of him. every now and then the captain, being in the navy, is compelled to be at sea for perhaps a whole afternoon or even several days; in which case mrs. everleigh-spillikins is very generally taken to the hunt club or the country club by lieutenant hawk, which mr. spillikins regards as awfully thoughtful of him. or if lieutenant hawk is also out of town for the day, as he sometimes has to be, because he is in the united states army, mrs. everleigh-spillikins is taken out by old colonel shake, who is in the state militia and who is at leisure all the time.

during their walks on plutoria avenue one may hear the four boys addressing mr. spillikins as "father" and "dad" in deep bull-frog voices.

"say, dad," drawls bob, "couldn't we all go to the ball game?"

"no. say, dad," says gib, "let's all go back to the house and play five-cent pool in the billiard-room."

"all right, boys," says mr. spillikins. and a few minutes later one may see them all hustling up the steps of the everleigh-spillikins's mansion, quite eager at the prospect, and all talking together.

now the whole of this daily panorama, to the eye that can read it, represents the outcome of the tangled love story of mr. spillikins, which culminated during the summer houseparty at castel casteggio, the woodland retreat of mr. and mrs. newberry.

but to understand the story one must turn back a year or so to the time when mr. peter spillikins used to walk on plutoria avenue alone, or sit in the mausoleum club listening to the advice of people who told him that he really ought to get married.

in those days the first thing that one noticed about mr. peter spillikins was his exalted view of the other sex. every time he passed a beautiful woman in the street he said to himself, "i say!" even when he met a moderately beautiful one he murmured, "by jove!" when an easter hat went sailing past, or a group of summer parasols stood talking on a leafy corner, mr. spillikins ejaculated, "my word!" at the opera and at tango teas his projecting blue eyes almost popped out of his head.

similarly, if he happened to be with one of his friends, he would murmur, "i say, do look at that beautiful girl," or would exclaim, "i say, don't look, but isn't that an awfully pretty girl across the street?" or at the opera, "old man, don't let her see you looking, but do you see that lovely girl in the box opposite?"

one must add to this that mr. spillikins, in spite of his large and bulging blue eyes, enjoyed the heavenly gift of short sight. as a consequence he lived in a world of amazingly beautiful women. and as his mind was focused in the same way as his eyes he endowed them with all the virtues and graces which ought to adhere to fifty-dollar flowered hats and cerise parasols with ivory handles.

nor, to do him justice, did mr. spillikins confine his attitude to his view of women alone. he brought it to bear on everything. every time he went to the opera he would come away enthusiastic, saying, "by jove, isn't it simply splendid! of course i haven't the ear to appreciate it—i'm not musical, you know—but even with the little that i know, it's great; it absolutely puts me to sleep." and of each new novel that he bought he said, "it's a perfectly wonderful book! of course i haven't the head to understand it, so i didn't finish it, but it's simply thrilling." similarly with painting, "it's one of the most marvellous pictures i ever saw," he would say. "of course i've no eye for pictures, and i couldn't see anything in it, but it's wonderful!"

the career of mr. spillikins up to the point of which we are speaking had hitherto not been very satisfactory, or at least not from the point of view of mr. boulder, who was his uncle and trustee. mr. boulder's first idea had been to have mr. spillikins attend the university. dr. boomer, the president, had done his best to spread abroad the idea that a university education was perfectly suitable even for the rich; that it didn't follow that because a man was a university graduate he need either work or pursue his studies any further; that what the university aimed to do was merely to put a certain stamp upon a man. that was all. and this stamp, according to the tenor of the president's convocation addresses, was perfectly harmless. no one ought to be afraid of it. as a result, a great many of the very best young men in the city, who had no need for education at all, were beginning to attend college. "it marked," said dr. boomer, "a revolution."

mr. spillikins himself was fascinated with his studies. the professors seemed to him living wonders.

"by jove!" he said, "the professor of mathematics is a marvel. you ought to see him explaining trigonometry on the blackboard. you can't understand a word of it." he hardly knew which of his studies he liked best. "physics," he said, "is a wonderful study. i got five per cent in it. but, by jove! i had to work for it. i'd go in for it altogether if they'd let me."

but that was just the trouble—they wouldn't. and so in course of time mr. spillikins was compelled, for academic reasons, to abandon his life work. his last words about it were, "gad! i nearly passed in trigonometry!" and he always said afterwards that he had got a tremendous lot out of the university.